Which Energy Security Union? An experiment on public preferences for energy union alternatives in 5 western European countries

Francesco Nicoli, David van der Duin and Brian Burgoon

Energy Policy, 2023, vol. 183, issue C

Abstract: The Russian invasion of Ukraine caught the European Union (EU) off-balance, leading some to propose a relaunch of the EU's Energy Union. However, the political feasibility of such programmes remains disputed, and any such policy design is inherently multidimensional with respect to scope, governance, source of financing and other dimensions. To determine public support for energy security cooperation, we conduct a (first ever) conjoint experiment on public support for alternative energy union designs, fielded among a highly representative sample of the French, German, Italian, Dutch and Spanish populations in November 2022. This multidimensional conjoint experiment allows us to determine the causal link between (hypothetical) policy features of potential energy solidarity pacts, and public support or opposition to such policy. Our results show that policy packages receiving the most support have higher levels of ambition, joint EU-level governance, joint purchases and procurement. All-in-all our results reveal considerable cross-border support for energy solidarity, indicating that a compromise policy is feasible and publicly supported. Furthermore, our results suggest that European citizens are willing to support the creation of joint institutions to face issues of common concern, suggesting that major crises open windows of opportunity to re-shape European integration.

Keywords: European union; Survey experiment; Energy union; European integration; Russian invasion of Ukraine; Public opinion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421523003191
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:enepol:v:183:y:2023:i:c:s0301421523003191

DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2023.113734

Access Statistics for this article

Energy Policy is currently edited by N. France

More articles in Energy Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().